Debbie Ringham, Research Engagement Manager, Cancer Research UK, introduces the Birmingham Cancer Showcase, an event held at the University of Birmingham where members of the public were invited to come in and find out about the work being done in cancer research.
Duration: 05.34 mins
Speakers
S1 S1 -Debbie Ringham, Research Engagement Manager, Cancer Research UK
S2 - Male speaker, Laboratory Tour
S3 - Female speaker, Laboratory Tour
S4 - Male speaker, Laboratory Tour
S5 - Male speaker, Laboratory Tour
S6 - Female speaker, Laboratory Tour
S7 - Female speaker
S8 - Female speaker
S9 - Professor Benjamin Wilcox, Professor of Molecular Immunology, UoB
S10 - Female speaker
S11 - Male Lecturer (no name given)
S12 - Female speaker
S13 - Male speaker
S14 - Christine Campbell, Lifestyle and Other Demos
S15 - Female speaker
Transcript
S1 So I’m Debbie Ringham, I’m the Research Engagement Manager for Cancer Research UK based here at the University of Birmingham. I’ve organised this event today with the brilliant researchers working here to really open up the doors so that people can come in and find out more about the work that’s going on here. And hopefully make our patients, supporters and members of the public more aware of research and hopefully feel more positive about the steps that we are making in the fight against cancer. We’ve got a really exciting programme of activities lined up. We’ve got behind the scenes tours in our laboratories where visitors can come and meet the scientists, find out more about what their work involves and have a look down the microscope at some cancer cells.
Laboratory Tours
S2 Essentially multiple copies of DNA in order to be able to manipulate it or enable us to express proteins and so on. So this is essentially just a photocopier for DNA.
S3 We try and keep them at a steady temperature but with our different variants, this variant is more resistant to the drug. So if you were a patient with this variant you wouldn’t want to be treated by this drug because it’s not killing off the cancer. Whereas if you’re a patient with this variant, you would want to be treated with that drug because it’s killing off the cancer quite fast.
S4 OK, I understand. So this is a breakdown with yeah, OK, the mutations.
S3 Mmm, yeah.
S5 OK, that’s a huge gene and you’ll find out how big it is in a minute and it has a role in initiating the DNA damage response, so when the DNA’s damaged it’s the signalling molecule that says to the machinery, come and repair the DNA.
S6 Because the vaccine will protect against catching it. It won’t help if you’ve already got it and it’s one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the world. They estimate at some point about 50% of sexually active Americans will have HPV infection at any one time. But for the vast majority of people it’s completely asymptomatic, it comes and goes; nothing happens. It’s very rare for it to actually cause cancer.
S7 It’s getting more experience and how to handle chemicals and –
S8 The experience of entering the labs, we’ve never done it before.
S7 Yeah.
S1 We have a range of taster talks from our key academics, clinical trials researchers and clinicians where they’ll be talking to the public about their research.
Public Lectures
S9 So I’m going to compare some of the key cells and things in comparison to a pin. Now one of the key ones is white blood cells. They’re in our blood at the moment.
S9 My talk today was aiming to provide an overview of how we can use and harness your immune system to target cancer and we know that the immune system is really important in fighting infection but what’s the evidence that it can control tumours and cancer and how can we persuade it to attack cancer more effectively? There’s some fantastic new therapies that are coming online and some fantastic research in Birmingham and also internationally that’s going on. That was the aim of my presentation.
S10 We’ve had one lecture about genetic cancer and how cancer starts and that’s been very informative and it was very clear and very precise and the lecturer was fabulous. He was very good.
S11 So we basically take out the genes that make the virus harmful and we can then add in the genes that encode for the cancer cell recognising receptor for example.
S12 We’ve just been into the immunology talk and that was really really interesting. And yeah, very positive and stuff, very hopeful.
S13 I was particularly interested in seeing one of the later sessions where it talks about where we are now and what’s going to happen in the future.
S1 We all have drop-in sessions for students learning more about careers and also healthy lifestyle sessions for people to learn more about how they can reduce their risk of cancer.
Lifestyle and other Demos
S14 I’m Christine Campbell, I’m a Cancer Awareness Nurse Manager. We’ve got different mobile units, cancer awareness units, around the country.
S15 I haven’t got to this stage of my training yet so I find them really hard. I’m mostly only dealing with these sorts of chromosomes.
S1 It’s been an amazing event. We’ve had about 300 people come through the doors to come and find out more about how we’re fighting cancer in Birmingham.
End of recording